MORE Tomatoes! Homemade V8 Juice

I know that looks like the same picture from last week, but it's not. It's from Wednesday. My dh picked tomatoes right at dawn to avoid the heat, & he got another 11 bags! We canned 35 more quarts of tomato juice. I think we'll have one more big load to pick & can in about a week, & then the tomato canning will be done for the summer.
I had to take a picture of our daughter holding this tomato before I cut it up.

They day before we canned the second round of tomato juice, I picked one bag of tomatoes & canned a batch of Spicy V8 juice. I found the recipe on line after following links at Simply Recipes. Here is the link to the recipe. I changed just a few things. I added 1 large green pepper, a few sweet banana peppers, & some fresh herbs. Spicy V8 Juice

8 quarts water

4 pounds homegrown tomatoes, chopped

1 bunch celery, chopped

8 green jalapeno peppers, chopped

1 cup vinegar

3 bay leaves

2 Tbs oregano

1 large onion, chopped

1 head garlic, pressed

4 Tbs salt

4 Tbs sugar

In a large pot, combine all ingredients except the sugar, bring to a boil, and cook at a steady boil for 2 hours.
Remove from heat and strain through a colonder or food mill, making sure to express all the liquid you can.
Discard the pulp, return the liquid to the pot, and boil for another couple of hours, or until the liquid is reduced to roughly three quarts. Add four tablespoons of sugar, remove from heat, stir, and let cool.

I added:

another pound of tomatoes

1 green pepper

5 sweet banana peppers

a small handful of flat leaf parsley

about 10 basil leaves, rolled & chopped

5 or 6 sprigs of thyme

3 sage leaves

And one more thing. I did NOT let it cook down to about 3 quarts. It would have been way way way too thick. I had been worried about all of that water it called for (EIGHT QUARTS!!!). I never add water to my regular tomato jucie, so this much water was kind of freakin' me out. LOL That is why I did add about 4 or 5 more tomatoes (about another pound). I did cook the whole pot for at least 3 hours (before juicing it) so I know a lot of the water cooked out...but it was still a lot of water.

Once I put it through the colonder & put it back on the stove, I did let it simmer for about an hour. Then I could see that it was going to be much more than 3 quarts, & it was not watery at all. If I had simmered it down to 3 quarts, it would have been spicy tomato sauce or spicy tomato PASTE. Which I'm sure is very good in it's own right...LOL...but I wanted V8 Juice.

And we got it. :)

6 quarts of it. Well, actually 6 and a HALF quarts. So I processed the 6 quarts & chilled the half quart for a tasting party. It was really good. It was still a little thick for my own personal taste, but it does taste so good that I don't mind it really. Next time I'll not worry about cooking all of that water out.

It will be terrific in chili or vegetable soup! Or just to chill it & drink it!